This invention relates to drainage culverts or pipes and relates particularly to a corrugated metal open top drain pipe used for the collection and removal of surface water from paved areas, such as highways, parking lots, airports and the like.
Surface water is normally removed from paved areas by constructing the pavement with an appropriate pitch and installing a network of curbs, gutters or other barriers and spaced catch basins. In recent years, highway engineers have become concerned with the adequacy of such conventional surface water drainage arrangements since it has been discovered that high speed vehicle handling can be seriously impaired if the vehicle's tires are caused to hydroplane due to a water film on the surface of the pavement. A number of serious accidents have occurred as a result of the highway drainage systems' inability to quickly and adequately remove surface water during a heavy rain storm. In addition, some of the drainage structures, such as curbs and catch basins, are themselves hazardous to any vehicle coming in contact with them.
On large paved areas, such as parking lots or airport aprons, it is impractical to use curbs, gutters or sufficient catch basins to service the large volumes of surface water and therefore ponding of the surface water often occurs, which in cold climates can result in an ice hazard.
Open top culverts have been used in the past and are the subject of U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,362,952 and 1,444,198 to McQueary and U.S. Pat. No. 3,714,786 to Evans, et al. Such previous open top culverts have either had structural deficiencies that prevented them from performing well over an extended period of time or were expensive to fabricate and install.